I have no idea if HN is monetized or not, and I mean directly, not by just creating community around YC.
I am wodering if it could be monetized. according to google trends the ycombinator domain has around 50K daily uniques. if all of this traffic arrives to HN I can guess it means 3M page views a momth. Assuming someone will try to monetized using CPC ads, with a ratio of click per 1K, assuming $1 per click this will lead to the modest $3000/mo. not that impressive I think (assuming this is a main income for a company and not a side project of some hacker who has a day job).<p>what do you think?
It gets monetized indirectly. Ycomb gets first look for many firms, and these firms get first look at many great developers. This site is plenty monetized - just not with ads or user fees.
like others have said, directly monetizing HN isn't really in line with the goals of the site.<p>But, an easy way to monetize it if you were looking would probably be a paid job board. Given the audience, it would be easy to charge a lot per listing.<p>also, your stats are way off, as of April:
<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2401131" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2401131</a>
My understanding is it is not monetized and already has a business purpose. As I understand it, monetizing it could potentially interfere with the existing business purpose. I've seen a smidgeon of discussion about this previously but cannot find it.<p>For some things of value, charging money (more) directly is a good way to kill the goose laying the golden egg. This is a concept I have struggled with for many years, but from the opposite side of the fence: How to make money when I know it to be true that charging directly would be a major fail, a case of "you can't get there from here". I don't have answers in that regard for my projects (and thus I don't have money). Presumably, pg (who does have money) and whomever else makes decisions about such things are not idiots about such details, so I am thinking it likely won't be monetized (at least not in the way you suggest -- as another person suggested, in some sense it already is since it plays a role in their business strategy).